Soapbox Pulp

Billy Donovan doesn't know a lot of stuff. He doesn't know about ska, he doesn't know The Smiths, he doesn't know about art. But Billy does know what he doesn't like, or more precisely who he doesn't like - just about everybody.

And Billy seems determined to kick the shit outta all of 'em, one rube at a time.

Okay, that might be a slight overstatement. Donovan's more an unDesireable Brando than a Death Wishing Bronson, by which I mean he doesn't exactly go out looking for payback. He just kinda considers it his due. And he's sure got a whole helluva lot due.

Anti HeroSo goes the branded bad boy in Michael Tenaglia's fist-fueled Anti Hero (Screaming Hill Press $12.95), a book so sociopathic it comes with its own warning.

Really.

But forewarned or not, there's many and more who'll be thoroughly offended by this anti-hero.

Which of course isn't such a bad thing. Some - hell, most - people deserve to reap more consequences for their actions, be it verbally or violently. I'd just like to know who appointed Billy Donovan King Comeuppance.

For that it might be helpful to look back, way back, to a Queensland lull between Saturday Night Fever and Do The Right Thing (yeah, I know, they're both Brooklyn-based, but you get the idea). In those dull days, like most of the dull days before them, today was at best bloody, and tomorrow was infinitely bleak. Knowing a cat could be either a cop, a construction worker, or a criminal - or, if lucky, a sordid combination of all three - one fought. And fought. Then surrendered. Contrary Billy instead kept his dukes up and chose to become a contender. Problem was - and is - he's in contention with the whole world.

Well almost. Billy's street fights and bar brawls were hardly solo affairs (this is Queens), but the balance is decidedly tipped in favor of the Them side of Us. Eventually even the Us is whittled down, and by the time now up-and-coming boxer/actor Billy moves to Manhattan in search of some proverbial new found glory it's just Me.

But even a strapping young malcontent needs luv every once in awhile, and Billy is no different. There's a succession of kooky dames - straight lace, mentress, witch - then the dream girl, Daisy, who winds-up co-habitating Billy's (remarkably easy to get) West Village ex-tenement. But don't think for a minute that Love means never having to say you're angry.

Just don't say it to Daisy.

Home bottling be damned; Billy finds anger everywhere. Necessity dictates that the budding thespian and suddenly wannabe writer take a series of okay-paying day/night jobs - construction worker, snoop, bar manager. That the construction occurs in the subway, the snooping is for an ex-cop, and the bar's owned by a lamming low level mob type only ups the anger potential - and the entertainment factor. That he uses all that down time to nurture an anarchist agenda of angst and more angst only compounds the two. The Monday morning beatdowns in the gym-of-the-week don't seem to hurt (or help) much either.

Through, over and above the mud, the blood, and the beer, there are Billy's beefs, which are insistent to the point of delirium. Imagine a portable soapbox whipped out and mounted at every occasion. Auditions spark rants against Hollywood; a good, cheap meal provokes a tirade against immigration policies and the new slave trade; a trip on a train gets him going on predetermination and predictability. Finally it takes only the rising and/or setting of the sun to rile him into harangues against every injustice ever suffered anyone, anywhere. And as worthy as are the targets, as noble as is the cause, as right as rain as are the rants, after awhile they're all just so much bullhorned background noise to be avoided and ignored.

But Billy Donovan won't take "shhh" for a suggestion, let alone an answer. And like all good/bad loudmouths, he won't be ignored. So what if he's taut to the point of tautology. No matter how self-evident the truths, he believes these things need to be said - over and over, again and again - and he's just the mad man to do it. And if some hapless representatives of the immoral order just so happen to cross his path, well, he's just the mad man to deal with them too. Fuck 'em if they can't take an altruistic fist.

In the end though, Anti Hero is just the beginning, both for wild Billy Donovan, and for his creator, Michael Tenaglia. It's too potent a combination of rage and talent to indicate otherwise. Like Jim Thompson with a manifesto on his mind, or John Fante covering street fights, Tenaglia has rendered one hard wrought wonder. There's a bit of a disconnect here and there; then not even Klitschko lands every punch. Billy Donovan might not be the best fighter of this generation, but you gotta give him credit for steppin' into the ring and swinging away on its behalf. I can't fault the cat, there are too few fightin' the good fight as it is. And who knows? It just might be Billy Donovan who one day beats the world sensible. Now that'd be a bout I'd like to see.

Note: This article was first published online in the now defunct Bully Magazine. Supplied with immense thanks to Ken Wohlrob.

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